At midnight, he’d recalled the claims he’d made at the time of his interview—a budget always had fat to trim. Sherry’s program provided the community with a much-needed service, and he wouldn’t let committee members run roughshod over him because he happened to be new. They wanted to cut the Hub completely. He wouldn’t let them. Sherry trusted him to save it, and save it he would.
After booting up his computer, Garrett hurried down the hall and unlocked Sherry’s office door. The report lay where he’d hoped it would. He felt his shoulders relax even as he picked it up, backed out again and closed the door. Then he turned and ran smack into Angel.
“Are you here to sign Dr. Campbell’s personal-leave form?” she asked, eyeing the packet of papers in his hand.
“L-leave?” he stammered, creasing the budget sheets in half so Angel wouldn’t be able to see what he’d done.
She set her purse on the desk and pulled a blank form out of a cubbyhole. “Just sign the bottom line and I’ll fill in the rest. Oh...what should I list as the reason for her absence?”
Garrett gaped at her, then at the paper she’d thrust into his hand along with a pen. “Reason? The truth, of course. Why is she taking the day off?” He half expected Angel to say Sherilyn was accompanying Maria Black to court or something.
Angel crossed her arms and gave him a look that said he must be dense. “Really, Dean Lock. With those gossips in Personnel, you can’t want to say she’s escorting your son on a field trip.”
“She’s what?” Garrett dropped the pen. He tried to make sense of Angel’s announcement as he searched for the pen. “How? Why...?” he finally managed.
Angel narrowed her eyes, studying him down the length of her nose. “In a message she left on my answering machine at home, she said you knew. She said your ex bowed out and she’s replacing her.”
“Keith,” he growled. “That little monster. I told him not to call her. He must’ve done it, anyway. That explains why he was so cheerful this morning.”
“Does this mean you won’t sign Dr. Campbell’s leave request?” Angel gave Garrett the evil eye. “No offense, Dean, but you’re such a dunce. She really loves your kid—and you, although why is beyond me. No, it’s not,” she corrected with a wave of her hand. “Women are saps when it comes to picking men.”
Garrett was about to protest that Sherry wasn’t a sap and, anyway, it was none of Angel’s business when the telephone rang. As she reached for it, he scribbled his name on the form and left it for her to handle, deciding it was safer to bail out than get into a discussion that threatened to become far too personal.
At his office door he heard his own telephone. Turning to his secretary, Garrett muttered, “If that’s Westerbrook or one of the other committee members, say I have to redo my proposal and I’m going to be late for the meeting.”
The woman’s cry of alarm halted his steps. Glancing over his shoulder, Garrett saw terror and sorrow and pity cross her face. “In Danville,” she said, voice erupting in fits and spurts. “The school bus your son is on skidded off the road and into the Loutre River. The principal is calling all the parents to come to the school and wait for further news.”
Garrett watched her hang up the phone as if another man resided inside his skin and had received the awful news. “Keith,” he said brokenly, remembering the excited child he’d dropped off at school a little more than an hour ago. “And Sherry,” he whispered, thankful somewhere deep in his heart that she’d cared enough for Keith to be there on such short notice. What if he lost them both?
Ashen-lipped, he instructed, “Tell Westerbrook.” Then, fearing his knees wouldn’t obey the need to get him to Keith’s school in one piece, Garrett tore out of the office like a man possessed.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE BUS DRIVER was a round jolly woman of indeterminate age. The teacher was so young Sherry doubted the ink on her certificate had dried yet. But the kids loved her, and they listened when she told them to sit and be quiet. Even if it was beyond the capacity of eight- and nine-year-olds to stay quiet long. Fifteen minutes into the drive, the bus pulsed noisily again with their laughter and excited squeals. Another mother, who accompanied her delicate-looking daughter, glanced at Sherry, grimaced and pretended to plug her ears.
Attempting to bring order to chaos, the teacher clapped her hands. “Let’s practice the songs we’re doing in our upcoming holiday show. Soft voices,” she said.
Keith scooted closer to Sherry. “Our program’s on the Friday before Christmas. Will you come?”
“Didn’t you invite your mom?”
He leaned his curly head on her shoulder. “Only Dad. Mom never has time.”
It was said with a careless shrug, but Sherry picked up on his pain. “Remind me when we get home, sport. I’ll check my calendar.”
“You will? Cool.” He sat forward, eyes bright as he joined the other singers.
He had a nice voice. Clear. Pure. Sherry sat back and smiled. Two songs later, she wondered if Garrett knew that his son had a gift for pitch and tone. He must, she decided, losing herself in thoughts of Garrett. Maybe fathers didn’t get worked up over things that weren’t athletic. She liked to think Garrett would.
The bus slowed to a crawl. Sherry craned her neck to see out the window, which was clouded with condensation. Reaching across Keith, she rubbed a spot clear. It was darker out than when they’d started. She felt a ripple of unease overtake the singers. The bus driver and the teacher appeared deep in conversation. The urgency of their body language communicated itself to Sherry. “Keith,” she murmured, leaning close to his ear, “I’m going to the front of the bus for a minute. You stay right here.”
He nodded and slid into the chorus of “Rudolph, the Red-nosed Reindeer.”
Lurching down the narrow aisle, Sherry determined that their bus had stopped behind the other one. Through the front window, she saw that the highway ahead was underwater.
“Problems?” She dropped into an empty seat behind the teacher. In answer, the radio crackled and a disembodied voice, presumably from the lead bus, queried whether they should go on or turn back. “Turning here won’t be easy,” a woman said.
“Your call,” advised Mary, the apple-cheeked driver. “Must be raining harder upriver than the forecasters thought. Never seen the Loutre River this high. How deep do you think it is?”
The lead driver didn’t respond. Instead, the big yellow bus crept forward. Sherry held her breath as inch by inch the tires churned, soon to be swallowed by swirling, muddy water. As if sensing something amiss, the children let their voices trail off thinly, and silence fell over the interior. Someone began to whimper. The other mother on board, Erica Hanover, tried to console the crying youngster.
Sherry hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath until the companion bus emerged on higher ground beyond the point where water covered the road.
“Well, now. That wasn’t so bad,” boomed the driver’s cheery voice. “This old storm will probably blow out before we head home. Hang on to your seats, kiddos, we’re gonna give Lucy Belle here a little bath.” The kids all giggled as the woman thrust the bus in gear and lovingly patted the dash.
Sherry made her way back to Keith. She felt the bus skid and cried out in surprise as her thigh smacked a metal seat rim. It hurt, and she almost landed in the lap of a sweet-faced girl whose pigtails wrapped her small head like a crown. “Excuse me,” Sherry gasped. Suddenly she was tossed in the opposite direction and fell to her knees. As children began to scream, she crawled uphill to reach Keith. The bus pitched and rolled as she sat down hard and rubbed at a rip in her tights.
Cries of panic escalated. The sound bounced off the ceiling as the bus whirled dizzily. Occupants were tossed first one way, then another. Unsure what was happening, Sherry gripped Keith with one hand and with the other, tried to shield two boys on the
opposite side of the aisle. A sheet of water splattered the hole she’d rubbed on the glass earlier. Immediately afterward, the window was slapped by a series of tree branches. With a sick sinking weakness that threatened to bring up the small amount of oatmeal she’d consumed for breakfast, Sherry realized they were no longer on the road.
“Find something solid and hang on, kids!” she shouted. “Stay in your seats and don’t let go. We’ll ride this out.” The bus bucked and shuddered and spun for what seemed an endless amount of time. Sherry had difficulty maintaining a positive face.
She fancied that her whole life passed in a blur. Memories, good, bad and in between skittered through her head. Regrets—yes. She was never going to see her children graduate from Wellmont. Never going to get married so she could have kids, even.
And Garrett—he’d be left forever alone because she’d failed to protect the boy he’d entrusted into her care. She met Keith’s frightened blue eyes and pinched white face, and vowed if there was any possible way to save him and these other children, she’d use her last breath to do so. For the moment, though, she sheltered as many small bodies as she was physically able to collect. The bumps and shrieks from other parts of the bus told of an appalling lack of adult shelters.
A terrible scrape and screech of metal brought renewed terror to the occupants, prompting wild screams. Then, mercifully, the buffeting stopped and the bus rocked gently as though cradled by invisible arms.
Sherry straightened and put aside Keith and the others who’d clustered in her arms. “Miss Briggs,” she called to the teacher above the din, “what is it? Shh, children. Don’t anyone move. We’re caught on something, I think.”
“Looks like we’ve run aground. No, we’re hung up on a tree, maybe,” yelled the driver. “The river’s raging, but I see land off to the left.”
“Does the radio work?” Sherry asked, hope overtaking apprehension. She again ordered the kids in her immediate vicinity to remain seated. Slowly, carefully, she moved forward, checking and attending to injuries as best she could, always wiping away tears. Erica Hanover shook like a leaf, but she tried to calm those closest to her.
After trying several radio frequencies, the white-lipped driver got a faint response. She sliced a hand through the air to quiet the crying. “The other bus reported the accident. All we have to do is sit tight and wait for rescue.” She unbuckled the first-aid kit and sucked in a breath when the bus rocked precariously. Taking out a medicated swab, she rolled up her pant leg and wiped a trail of blood that ran down her leg. “Leg might be broken,” she muttered, passing Sherry the kit.
Sherry glanced out through the miraculously unbroken glass and into the greedy, sucking floodwater doing its level best to dislodge them from their perch. The young teacher appeared to be in shock. Unless she snapped out of it, that left Sherry, a shaky Erica and a crippled driver to see to the transfer of thirty crying kids, some of them injured. As if things weren’t already about as bad as they could get, Keith suddenly launched himself against her thighs and dropped an unexpected bombshell.
“This is all my fault! ’Cause I was bad. Dad said I couldn’t ask you to come—and I did. I sneaked into his room and used his phone. Now he’ll be mad.”
Sherry’s heart had just settled a bit. Keith’s declaration sent it skittering again. Garrett didn’t know she’d come with Keith. He hadn’t had a change of heart. And if by some chance Angel didn’t get her message, no one knew where she was.
None of which mattered now. Nor did it have any direct bearing on how she felt about Garrett and Keith. She loved them. It was simple, really. Love had always seemed so complicated. It wasn’t at all. A studied calm invaded her body as she patted Keith’s head. “Honey, I promise your dad won’t be mad.” She smiled into his teary face. “Trust me,” she said. “I want everyone to sit as still as mice. Keith, why don’t you and Miss Briggs start another Christmas song?”
Keith brushed a lock of hair from a thin cut that bloodied his forehead and, along with his teacher, sang “Silent Night.” At first in a high quavery voice, then growing stronger as the other children joined in.
Sherry shucked off her cardigan and wrapped it around a thin girl who’d begun to shake. She used her scarf to make a sling for a boy whose arm she feared was broken. The teacher rallied and worked the other side of the aisle. She, a gray-faced Erica and Sherry took care of the hurt and the frightened. All thirty kids were gut-wrenchingly scared. So was Sherry.
* * *
GARRETT WHEELED into the elementary school parking lot behind a van he knew belonged to the family of one of Keith’s classmates. The guy stopped in a bus-loading zone and jumped out. So did Garrett. The woman behind him did the same. Garrett raced into the office in time to hear the principal say the accident had happened about thirty-five minutes east of the city.
“A thirty-five minute drive on a good day,” she said. “With this unexpected flash flooding, driving conditions are anything but ideal.”
“Has anyone been in contact with the bus driver?” Garrett asked.
“Our other driver. She apparently crossed a low spot in the highway, but when Mary’s bus reached the middle of the crossing, a wall of water came out of nowhere and broadsided her bus. Both Montgomery and Warren counties have dispatched rescue crews. News is sketchy, but we must be patient.”
Garrett glanced around at the worried faces of the other parents. “Why are we waiting here?” He started elbowing his way to the door.
The principal held up a hand. “Don’t do anything foolish, Dr. Lock. The police and volunteer rescue teams are gathering. Rushing up there will only overload highways already devastated by this freak storm.”
“Those are our kids,” Garrett said emotionally. “How can we sit on our duffs when extra hands may help?”
“Let’s go, then,” chimed in another man. “My wife planned to go on this trip, but she woke up with the flu. My daughter’s alone.”
“I have four-wheel drive,” announced a father who’d just come in. Most of the men who were present charged out and piled into his vehicle. No one spoke much on the drive. The storm that was supposed to pass over lashed them with dark fury. Garrett conjured up happy visions of Keith and Sherry as if doing so would keep them safe from harm. When they slowed at a railroad track, he remembered Carla. He dragged out his cell phone and placed a call to the bank, only to be informed by someone with a bored voice that both Carla and Crawford were in meetings and had left word they couldn’t be disturbed.
Garrett felt unwarranted anger crowd out his good sense. “Tell Carla,” he snapped, “that the son she’d promised to be with today is in a school bus trapped in the middle of some river.” The man seated on his left supplied the name, which Garrett added before he signed off.
“When the rescue teams reach them,” the man said, “they’ll transport any injured kids to St. Louis.”
Garrett didn’t want to think about injuries. But of course it was a possibility. He paused, admitting how glad he was that Sherry was there to look out for Keith.
When they reached the area, which police had cordoned off, and saw the roughly tumbling
debris-filled river that had jumped its banks, Garrett realized injuries were more than a possibility. A shed bobbed past, followed by a car that cartwheeled out of sight around a bend in the out-of-control tributary. His hands shook and his blood froze.
The men jumped from the vehicle and waded toward the rescuers clustered near a boat. Two men dressed in hip waders and yellow raincoats wrestled a small aluminum boat onto a flatbed truck. Two others were unloading motorized rubber rafts from another truck.
“Any updates?” Garrett demanded. “We all have kids on that bus.”
One of the men, a grandfatherly type, looked up. “When we got downstream in this boat—” he tapped the aluminum hull “—we saw the bus hung up on a tree growing out
of a sandbar. The kids were singing Christmas carols. Beat all I ever seen. The current’s dicey. Near impossible to get this baby close. One of the moms, a spunky little gal, busted out a side window and rigged a rope slide from inside. We got maybe twenty kids and a skinny teacher out. Water’s icy, though, and some of ’em were cut and bruised. Top of that, a few hit floating debris. Each batch we hauled ashore, rescue vehicles carted ’em off to various hospitals.”
“So you got everyone out?” The fear gripping Garrett’s stomach uncoiled in a rush.
“Nope. Weren’t that lucky. The bus broke loose and shot downriver about a hundred yards. She went under up to the bottom of the windows. Appears to be lodged on a boulder sticking out of a shoal. Still has the spunky mom, a pretty hysterical mom, an injured driver and mebbe ten kids on board. Problem is, the shoal sits smack in the middle of a big eddy. Tossed this puppy around like so much flotsam. They’re gonna try rubber rafts. Maybe they’ll roll easier with the swells. Don’t know what the crew up there’ll do if that fails.”
The man who’d given Garrett the lift waded close to the two rescuers. “Any way you have names of the kids already taken off the bus?”
The old fellow rubbed his bald pate. “Me’n Joe are headed upriver to get a lady and her cat hanging on a roof. See that gent?” He pointed to a young man working a base radio attached to a Red Cross vehicle. “He can probably give the hospitals a jingle and get names. The kids were already tagged for their field trip, which helped.”
Garrett thanked the men. Then the worried dads converged on the man with the radio. After a suspenseful ten minutes, they pored over the list of rescued children. When Garrett read Keith’s name, there was no describing the relief he felt. But where was Sherry’s? He ran down the scribbled names more slowly. Her name wasn’t there.
The Boss Next Door (Harlequin Heartwarming) Page 25
